Sauteed Indian lettuce with garlic (蒜蓉油麥菜) - Din Tai Fung (Causeway Bay) 鼎泰豐 (銅鑼灣)

Sauteed Indian lettuce with garlic (蒜蓉油麥菜) - HK$42

The Hungry Nobody score - 7/10

A refreshing dish that turned out less oily than I thought it would.

Din Tai Fung (Causeway Bay)

G/F, 68 Yee Wo Street

鼎泰豐

銅鑼灣怡和街68號地下

(+852) 3160 8998

What I did like was that the lettuce was cooked just right.  The stems still maintained a hearty crunchiness to them, and the leaves were soft without being overcooked and limp.  The garlic was fairly prominent in the dish, so if you don't like garlic, it might be better to avoid this dish (or ask them to go easy on the garlic - I actually liked the garlic).  The flavor of the dish comes mostly from the garlic, and from the sauce.  The sauce itself, while obviously mainly oil, actually didn't come across as too oily or heavy.  Overall, the dish, while not as 清 (clear/clean) as I like for my vegetables, was less oily than it could have been.

What I didn't like was that there was a bit of sauce at the bottom of the lettuce.  While it's not uncommon, especially at these types of restaurants, I always wished that places would not dump all the oily sauce and serve it along with the lettuce.  I wind up having to dump out the oil before eating, so that the bottom lettuce doesn't continue to soak in the oil.  Lastly, it can't be helped but to say that ordering vegetables at a restaurant is a surefire way to get crappy bang for the buck.  At HK$42, it's obviously a dish that offers poor value, but relative to it's peers, it's actually not unreasonably priced.  You could make an argument for this to actually be a good point, but I still think it warrants a place in the dark side...